Relentless
by Jay Nice
Summary: Sometimes, Dean wishes he isn't so adept at lying to his brother. Missing scene from 10x17, Inside Man. SPOILERS


Dean Winchester hates how easily he's taken to lying to his brother.

_"How'd you sleep?"_

_"Like a drunk baby."_

The nightmares have only been getting worse. Ever since he was cured, the horrific phantasms have been plaguing him every night. However, it's only been since he killed Cain that they've escalated sharply, leaving him awakening later in a puddle of sweat and voice hoarse from screaming through the night. His arm always aches—in fact, now it's become sort of a daily norm—but after the nightmares, all he can think about is sawing the cursed section of raised skin off of his arm. It would certainly feel less painful, as the sharp, stabbing pain leaves him craving blood and guts and gore and murder and—

Something hot and scalding runs down his hand, and Dean jumps out of his seat in surprise, cradling the burnt hand. The tea cup he'd been holding was now shattered, its contents spilling all over the table and onto the floor. He looks at his hand in awe (his right hand, the arm with the Mark on it), trying to fathom how he could have crushed the porcelain cup with only his grip strength. He feels his hands shaking, so he quickly sets to busying himself with cleaning up the mess he'd made.

The Mark scares him. Its power is unfathomable. He's given up on trying to find a cure, because he knows there isn't one. Dean's come to believe that it can do whatever it wants. Turn him into a demon? Yeah, go ahead. Give him unyielding nightmares that would make the most seasoned veteran cry like a baby? Oh course!

Make him kill Sam?

Dean cringes. That's what last night's dream was about. He'd used the First Blade (because it gives him _so much power_ and makes him _unstoppable_) and had torn his baby brother to shreds. Throughout the dream, he was screaming his brother's name, begging himself to stop, praying for Cas or anyone to save him, crying for Sammy to wake up, wishing for death to take him instead. But the Mark was relentless. It burned on, making him raise the old bone, drop it, slice it, stab it. It had control over him, and he couldn't stop it. Even after the light faded from Sam's eyes, he'd continued to score and mutilate the body, making sure that no power, celestial or otherwise, would be able to put him back together. Dean was wailing, but the Mark prevailed in its deadly task. Dean's brother was dead, and nothing was going to bring him back.

_"And then! Then would come the murder you'd never survive, the one that would finally turn you into as a much of a savage as it did me…"_

Sam was gone.

_"Your brother, Sam. The only thing standing between you and that destiny is this Blade. You're welcome my son."_

He can't save his brother. The mark on his arm is going to ensure that, and his constant nightmares are mere visions of what is surely yet to come. And it's coming soon.

Dean's glad that Sam left to go see that inevitably lame French movie—Dean still doesn't understand how _any_ form of media without nude women can be counted as entertainment—because he's sure that if Sam hadn't gone off, he would have been interrogated. He doesn't know how obvious it is is that he didn't sleep well at all last night, but he can guess that his brother, who knows him better than anyone, would have figured it out soon enough. At least now his baby brother is enjoying that mime/cockroach crap-fest that only nerds like him could possibly enjoy.

Once Dean's shattered cup is cleaned away, he finds that his mind is exactly where it was before. He'd woken up this morning with his throat so dry that he's positive he was screaming all last night. Not that he's surprised; last night's dream was by far his worst one ever. Killing Sam is his ultimate fear, and the Mark is amplifying that fear. Somehow, it _knows_ what Cain foresaw, and it's making sure that Dean never forgets what he will turn back into.

He's given up. He hates it, but he can feel it in the pulsating in his arm that the Mark is not relenting. It's only growing stronger.

He can only hope that he can subdue it for a little longer.

* * *

**Because, like many of you, I absolutely LOVED last night's episode and, as usual, it inspired some angst-y fanfic in me. :)**

**I'd love to hear you reviews or thoughts about where the season is going (I'm personally scared)!**


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